February 2-6, 2026

From February 2–6, the St. Sava Mission in Jackson, CA, hosted an intensive course of iconography—five concentrated days of learning, prayerful work, and shared life.

The first day was devoted to foundations: drawing, sketching, and the patient shaping of a portrait—learning how line carries meaning and how color is laid with intention. From the second day onward, the students began work on a saint. Some chose Saint Marina or Saint Peter after models by Yorgos Cordis, while others worked on Saint Porphyrios the New, Saint Luke of Crimea, or Saint Euphrosynos the Cook. Throughout the course, the students were guided by the living tradition shaped by two major contemporary iconographers: George Kordis and Stamatis Skliris.

Each day unfolded in six-hour sessions, from noon until 6 p.m., interwoven with common meals, conversation, and fellowship. The rhythm of work and shared table created an atmosphere both focused and warm—serious labor carried by community.

This is the method and vision that shaped the course. The students worked according to the classical Byzantine process: beginning with a local color (proplasmos), the image is gradually led toward light through successive layers—flesh tones (sarkōmata) and illuminations (phōtismata, lammata)—and completed with final white highlights (psimythia). The distinction here is not between drawing and color, but between form and light, since color itself is luminous. Characteristic of this school is the freedom to apply this method to any subject and any form—whether drawn from the lives of the saints or from the ordinary realities of contemporary human life.

The students—Gabriella, Zorica, Victoria, Charyl, Lori, Laurie, Lura, Anna, Biljana, Jayden, and Fr Marko—entered the course with openness and dedication, and over these days learned much: in drawing and color, in patience and discipline, and in seeing the icon not as an object, but as a living relationship shaped by light.

During the course, Steve McLean, Mayor of Jackson, visited the students and expressed genuine surprise at their creativity, discipline, and artistic maturity. In this sense, the school itself revealed its deeper vocation: not merely a place of instruction, but a “mission through art,” where painting becomes witness. During these days, the students also took part in the Divine Liturgy on Tuesday, February 3, the feast of Saint Maximus the Confessor, allowing their artistic labor to be rooted directly in the life of worship. They further witnessed the consecration of the ground for the new chapel of Saint George of Oakland—the groundbreaking that marks the beginning of a new chapel and a historic, deeply meaningful moment, as the life of Saint George of Oakland continues on this property through the mission in Jackson.

During the course, the students received encouraging greetings from George Kordis and Father Stamatis Skliris. In the words of Father Stamatis Skliris:

“Through your video you treat us to a gentle vision of sacred art that delightedly surprised us and, lifting us out of our monotony, opened before us a divine world of joyful love. In doing so, you introduced each iconographer of your God-inspired fellowship as a divine-human, Christ-crowned, deeply beloved saint, who illuminates our existence like a heavenly beacon. Come here, Christos Yannaras, and behold your beloved children, who have fully assimilated your God-inspired lesson of loving relationship! O radiant face of Saint Luke, you shine as a revelation of paradisiacal life and unite us in Eucharistic thanksgiving, where the icons—the easels, the brushes, the halls themselves—are transformed into love for Christ, into a relationship of all-embracing love. Come, our spiritual fathers—Saint Justin, great Ioannis of Pergamon, Athanasius, Amphilochius— O great-named constellation of Paradise, you who illumine our path and guide us toward the eternal, paradisiacal feast of loving communion!”

The Jackson course concluded with completed icons in progress, but also with a renewed sense that iconography is learned as much through presence and patience as through technique—by walking together, layer by layer, toward light.

The course was led by Bishop Maxim, with the generous assistance of Gabriella Matthews, and gathered ten dedicated students. Some students arrived with clear expectations, others with eager anticipation—but in each case, as one of them put it, “this openness blossomed into a dynamic dance of artistic growth and spiritual nourishment, and once again the workshop bore abundant fruit.”

The iconography course was held at the endowment of Anja Paulić, in the building she generously presented to the Serbian Women’s Auxiliary on July 7, 1968, a space where generosity continues to bear artistic and spiritual fruit.

The entire course was realized thanks to the generous support and hospitality of Father Marko Bojovic, the local priest of St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church, and with the invaluable help of Protinica Sandra Ceko, through her website page dedicated to this iconography program. The photographs documenting the course were taken by the Jackson iconographer Larry Laza Angier, whose attentive eye quietly accompanied the work.

In conclusion, again the words of Fr. Stamatis:

““The Radiant Forehead of Saint Luke” could well be the emblematic phrase expressing the great iconographic School of the Diocese of Los Angeles, which is now emerging as one of the finest throughout Orthodoxy. Beloved young and talented masters of the holy icons, I confess that I myself have never succeeded in painting a face like that of Saint Luke. Here, the greatness of the Saint has been achieved—not as a property of his nature, but as a deep, loving, joyful personal relationship between the Saint and the faithful who venerate him. Nothing stands on its own; everything is embraced lovingly, one within the other. Where are you, immortal teacher “Olympian” Zizioulas, to behold with pride the fruits of your lessons? What you sowed with the austere language of your Dogmatics has here been translated into a gracious breeze of chromatic sensitivity and harmony. Come, let us venerate these newly revealed, worthy artists of the theology of icons!” (Stamatis… perhaps also a painter)